


The Shape of Her

by lettered



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Art, Character Study, F/M, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-03-01
Updated: 2003-03-01
Packaged: 2017-10-10 01:57:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/93947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettered/pseuds/lettered
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marie gives Logan a gift.  Logan descends into Salinger-esque contemplation (minus all the reflections on school and conformity and plus a lot more reflections on sex :o)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Shape of Her

**Author's Note:**

> I know that some of the ideas in this piece aren't mine: Rogue-as-an-artist was stolen from several different authors; and the general concept behind this piece isn't that new.

"Real nice, kid."

The words're grossly inadequate, but what the hell am I supposedta say? Hell, I don't even know what to call the thing. A vase? A pot? A sculpture? A bucket?

A pot. Marie gave me a pot. For no reason, she said, shrugging in that little way she hasa hers. She just thought I should have it. I don't even know if I'm supposedta put anythin' in here, or what I would, if I was.

I set it on the table and walked around it a couple times, like it was gonna come up and bite me or somethin'. Then I realized I was being pretty goddam ridiculous so I lit this cigar, stretched out on my chair—and watched it, chewin' on the cigar and lookin' at the thing with narrowed eyes.

I never saw her makin' it—guess she wantedta surprise me—but on the other hand, I woulda kinda liked to see her throw this one. Marie throwin' pots was made for people like Scooter—not that I'd want him to watch, or anythin', but the way she does it is a like a sex-substitute, if you're not gettin' any, which assumin' he ain't (thus accountin' for the pole up his ass. Don't know what Jean's doin' with herself—but it must be just that, with herself, 'cause he certainly ain't the type that's gotta happy bed life. I should know). Marie throwin' pots is Marie touchin' and feelin', which she hardly ever getsta do.

It's sexy is what it is, watchin' Marie create. You'd know if you saw her hands. I saw 'em once in my old truck, before it got blown up, but I wasn't exactly thinkin' 'bout it at the time, and a buncha shit happened after that so it was years before I saw her hands again. You wouldn't think you'd go years without seein' her hands when she was your best friend and everythin' for so long, but that's how it was. She didn't even take her gloves off the first time we had sex. And she didn't the next time either, or even the next time. Hands are what you use to touch people and well, she can't, so the gloves stay on and she thinks it's better that way, at least around most people.

But then one day she just up and says in that little drawl of hers, "Know what sugar? These're getting' in the way." So she strips 'em off one at a time—and trust me, you think you've seen somethin' when you've seen a professional stripper—they're good, lemme tell you. And you think you've seen somethin' again when you watch Marie undress, and she's all shy about it, blushin' to beat the sun and wantin' you so much at the same time that she's flustered to get her clothes of fast enough. And it's somethin' *again* to have her do it for you when she knows you're watchin', and she's doing all the little things that can get your blood up faster than you can tell her what it is you want her to do.

But trust me—you ain't seen nothin'—nothin'—as sexy as Marie strippin' off those gloves that night. It was like she was showin' me her whole world, and she says in this really soft, really sweet voice, "Let me touch you," and I know she's never said that before, and that she'll never say it to anyone else. It's somethin' she's been more afraid to say than anythin' else in her life, and yet she's been wantin' to do it more than anythin' else too, and it's a really, really big moment for her—

And I'm sittin' there, starin' at her wrists. It's like I never seen a pair of goddam wrists before. I mean, normally you don't think of wrists as being sexy, but lemme tell you, Marie has got the hottest, sexiest wrists you ever saw. It's absolutely *havoc* on your head because you haven't got anythin' to say to this girl who just stripped down all the way for the first time, gloves an' all, right in front of you. Instead every blood cell in your goddam body is endin' up at your dick, and what little thought is left is thinkin' 'bout all the things those wrists and hands could do.

Marie—she didn't seem to mind.

In fact, she said she was savin' my—fetish—for some rainy day. Ok, so I was a little interested in that, so I asked her what she's talkin' about. She comes right out and says it's a great way to blackmail me, and that's she's gonna tell Scott about my weakness for wrists if I ever, you know, displease her. That's what she said, just like that, easy as you please.

Now first of all, I ain't ever gonna *displease* Marie, not if I've got a say about it—which I do, thank you very much. And second of all, I don't much like Marie talkin' about any other man—even someone as harmless as Scooter—when she's lyin' in my bed like that, all tousled in my sheets. And last—and this one I tell her—Cyke knows about wrists—it's *all* in the wrists, he'd say, like the wrist attached to his right hand.

But she just laughs at me, and for some reason I never mind Marie laughin' at me, because it's a real good laugh, like it comes from right out of her instead of somewhere at the top of her. It's not the kinda laugh someone gives you when they don't understand you—nope, Marie never titters. She's got this sweet, husky, southern laugh that just warms you right up and says she knows you through and through, and that's what she finds so goddam enjoyable.

She'd laugh at me now. Bet I look like a goddam idiot, starin' at this piece of clay like this, but now I'm not just starin' at it—I've got it in my hands, again, and that's not just idiotic any more. In fact it's just plain weird.

But she said somethin' when she gave it to me 'bout how she didn't quite smooth the clay over, exactly. She left the edges rough, and then she came right out and sassed me, called me sugar and said she wanted it to be like me. I said, "Oh hell, darlin', there ain't a rough edge on me, I don't know what you're talkin' 'bout." Then she mutters somethin' 'bout wilderness, not shaving, and flannel shirts (she's got this big problem with flannel. She says she likes it a whole helluva lot better offa me altogether. Tough luck. I ain't walkin' around shirtless for your pleasure, darlin'). But the point is that you can still see her finger-prints in the clay, here, where she didn't smooth it out all the way. And what's so fuckin' weird about it is I like touchin' it in those spots because I know she touched it there.

Now, I ain't some romantic pansy that ever had this fetish before 'bout things people had touched; I don't give a rat's ass if some famous person's walked on this very road before or if someone downright holy touched that bit of cloth or even if a lover's slept in these sheets or touched that book or whatever. I'm just gettin' where I needta go, and the cloth's gonna be a spit rag if it ain't got a better use, and the sheets are gettin' washed—'cause I don't care what she says about rough edges and wilderness, I like my shit clean. Touch is just touch and things are just things.

But 'course it's different with Marie. Touch is forbidden and things are allowed. I mean, why else didja think she works with clay? It's very sensual, she says, and I believe it. She can just sit behind a wheel for hours, and she'll close her eyes, and it'll be silent and she'll get accustomed to the smell, and the only sense she'll be using is just *feeling.*

She usedta say she did that when she was with me. That was hard, because for me, bein' with her is *everything*—christ, I don't even know where to start explainin' what bein' with her is like. There's feelin' of course, but she's got this scent—and she's got this way about not bein' subtle 'bout it either. I do somethin'—better yet, she does somethin', and turns herself on, or she does somethin' that I think is just for me, but I can smell her gettin' wetter and wetter and christ almighty does that make a man feel good.

And she tastes pretty damn good to boot, even if it's all through silk and sheer stuff, and when you're tastin' her right where she tastes real strong—tangy, feminine, musky, and really fuckin' good—she makes these little sounds that just drive me totally wild. Sure, I can make her scream, and that's a lotta fun, but I liketa hear her panting. She told me once in this really smart-ass sassy voice that she's from Mississippi, and that I was a total wuss: it doesn't get hot in New York, she said, so I should stop complainin' about it. That night was the first time I really made her pant—she couldn't even scream she was sweatin' so hard, and she thought twice next time before smart-mouthin' me again. Of course she did mouth off again. Asked me if I still had it in me to give her a little taste of her hot wet Mississippi again.

And again.

Gotta love that mouth.

But more than anythin'—besides actually feelin' her—I love *seein'* her. I love seein' her beneath me, pale and writhing and covered with this thin film of sweat, her eyes wide and begging—or she'll be bucking, positively hostile, like she can force me—right—and her eyes'll be snapping fire and eatin' me alive. I love seein' her lips wrapped around me, 'specially with her eyes starin' up at me; I love seein' her between me and the wall; I love seein' her in my bed, in my shower, in my things where I hate havin' other people go.

Yep, I even love seein' her in my things—'specially those tags. They never leave her neck. They're not even mine any more—they're not even hers. I don't know—Marie says some people have this idea that things should be *theirs,* as a couple, but we don't work like that. I have my personal things and she has hers, and what's mine is just mine and what's hers is just hers. But those tags—I guess, if anythin', that's what's ours. They don't even really belong to us—they're just us. That's just me, on her body, between her breasts, always touchin' her. I can't even keep offa her.

But the things that're just mine, I like seein' her with them, among them—most of the time. I didn't even say anythin' first time she used my razor, and if you know me, that's sayin' a lot. 'Course, next time she did it she was out flat on her ass 'til she cleaned her act up; there's just some things in a man's life you don't mess with, and she learned that pretty damn quick. 'Cept of course, she had to get me back in her own little way. That's the way we work, I guess. Respect each other's boundaries but keep 'em on edge. That's Marie's philosophy, and mine too, for her.

I'm the one who asked her to take off the gloves, see, and that cloth she draws up between her and the world is her biggest boundary, in more ways than one. I'm the one that asked her to take 'em off and she's the one who did it. It took her a helluva long time, but she did it, and if she asked, I'd do just as much for her.

But it was me who asked her to open her eyes that first time. See, I love seein' her so much that I wanted to see her eyes, too. I knew she wanted me and I knew pretty well how much, 'cause I felt it too, but I wanted to see it in her eyes.

But that first night she said she couldn't. Even when I moved inta her she kept 'em clothes. I guess it was somethin' like the gloves, but not quite. This wasn't 'cause she was afraid—it was because that's how she wanted it. Said she wanted to just *feel* me, that anythin' more would be too much, too fast. Now, we'd been goin' real gradually, so gradually that that first time was hardly anythin' new, but I knew it was a lot for her so I didn't press the issue.

And then, I'd only been inside her a little while, and she starts makin' those little sounds, and her muscles are clenching around me and pullin' me in tighter, an' deeper, and suddenly her eyes fly open, and they *stay* open. She just whispers, "I want you to see."

And I tell you, you can make 'em scream, and like I've said, I love it when she pants, and when she calls my name it gets me ready all over again, but those five little words right at that moment were better than anythin' else she coulda given me. Better, even, than watchin' her eyes as I make her fall apart—and I tell you, I dreamed *that* goddam dream every night (before I started gettin' it every night, that is). I guess it was 'cause she was tellin' me she wanted me to see what I didta her, like this was somethin' she'd always felt but just couldn't say before. But I also know *part* of the reason she opened her eyes and said to me what she did then was just because she knew I wanted her to, and I tell you: that's love, darlin'.

They were closed for a while after that first time, and she kept 'em closed, but just recently she started watchin' me when I'm inside her—which is just the cutest thing, because she blushes. Of course her blushin' just makes me hotter, so I'm tryin' to think of a way to tell her how sweet it is, just so she'll get embarrassed, like she sometimes does, and blush more. I know she won't be embarrassed for long—she never is. It's just all new to her now, but like I said, she's got the mouth as defense. When I asked her the other night how come she started openin' her eyes she just looked at me and said, "Well, sugar, I started to worry you might have fleas, so I thought I'd better check those chops while you were so close." God, does she know howta get a guy right where it hurts—but she certainly made it up to me, or I made her make it up to me, or some combination. We always work it out between us, me and Marie.

So I'm just sittin' here touchin' this vase thing because I know how much touch means to Marie, and because I know how she just sits at the wheel and closes her eyes—but now when I make love to her her eyes are always open.

The pot's Marie, you can tell, even without her name and the year scratched inta the bottom. It has these curves—this nice big swell for the basin and a narrow, elegant neck, and then it flares out again for the opening at the top. Nice, full curves, like her; nice, long neck. Bare.

Of course she'd have to make it bare; it was just clay, right? I don't know shit from shinola about art but I know ya don't go coverin' up a real classy piece of pottery with a buncha crap. But it was all bare, just plain clay, the reddish brown terra cotta kind, without any paint or glaze coverin' it. Just stark earth with a single white stripe down one side. That white stripe was Rogue. The rest was Marie. At least, that's how I always thought about it. Your eyes get drawn to that strip of white and of course that's what you see. But take off the Rogue-clothes, 'specially those real long tight gloves she wears, and it ain't untouchable skin under there. It's completely touchable—you just gotta know how to touch it.

And I ain't talkin' 'bout when she's naked and in my sheets—though I like her like that just fine, thank you very much. I'm talkin' 'bout when she isn't the person she is with everybody else, when she's just with me and it's just us. That's when she's touchable, so completely touchable that if she ain't touchin' me I'm touchin' her, and it doesn't hafta be skin to skin or anythin' like that. It just has to be real close; it just has to be us, together.

Here's where it gets really fucked up. I'm just holdin' this pot, just touchin' it, I start thinkin' 'bout how  
the raw clay and the curves are so much like Marie, and how this ain't really a work of art you look at but somethin' you gotta hold, just like me with Marie, and it really strikes me just then how this pot is like her. She's like the ground, like you gotta feel it under your feet all the time or else you start feelin' kinda sick. I ain't sayin' I'm Scooter and can't leave her alone for more than five seconds before I start missin' her or start feelin' jealous or somethin' like that. Shit no. I trust her and I ain't a pansy. I just mean she's kinda earthy, if you get my drift. So completely sensual. I guess she's kinda like that clay, raw and open and real, and that's what's so fucked up.

See, 'cause then I start thinkin' weird shit, like how if Marie had to be a shape other than the one she is, she'd be this vase thing, with its curves and its rawness and the way she's just so goddam touchable. Pretty fucked up if you ask me—but that's what I was thinkin'. I was thinkin' that if she was this pot thing then I'd only put one thing inside—me. And I don't mean that how you're thinkin', though I mean it that way too. Sure, havin' myself inside Marie're the highest points of my life—in more ways than one—but there're times when I'm inside of her, and she's touchin' me, and callin' my name like I'm her world—times like that I just wanna crawl *all* the way up inside of her and stay. When you say it like that it just sounds stupid, or cowardly, or probably both—but that's how I feel when I'm inside of her.

She holds me. That's how it is. When we're makin' love or havin' sex or whatever the hell you wanna call it, she holds me. She does it even when she's on her knees in front of me, or when I got her arms pinned or when I'm behind her. It's not holdin' with her arms or legs, and it ain't even holdin' with those sweet, pink little muscles inside her, though that's a damn fine way she holds me too. She's warm in there and she's soft and goddamit but does she smell good, but I'm not talkin' 'bout just up inside her body. When I'm inside her like that I also wanna get up inside of *Marie,* inside of the way she looks at the world and the way she looks at me. And she draws me deeper, just like those little muscles do, even when I ain't touchin', or lookin', or hell, even ain't thinkin' 'bout her (which isn't much of the time, lemme tell you. When you got a woman like Marie and ya know she does things like waits for you naked in your bed or leaves her scent all over my uniform—so I can smell her even when I'm takin' care of nasty shit I want as far removed from her as possible—she's never that far off in your mind).

Now, it takes a lot to hold a person, 'specially if the person's the Wolverine. I'm not really the stationary kinda guy. I've lived on the run for as long as I can remember, and probably longer than that. I don't even stay put now—Marie, she lets me go. But if I could, if it was just her and me, I'd just stay, and it'd be just us. She's my safe place, ya know, my good thing—the one good thing that keeps you alive and keeps you going. Marie does that for me. That's true—definitely—when I'm thrusting inside of her (trust me, times like those: Marie always keeps me goin')—but also when we're alone together. Times like that she keeps me goin' for the rest of the time. She makes me feel . . . I don't know. Chuck'd say 'at peace', for lack of better words—sometimes, Chuck can understand a surprising amount.

I guess it's sorta like that. Marie, she holds me still. Like I said, she's my safe place—and it ain't physical safety or mental or anythin' like that, 'cause I don't need that. It's not like I'm afraid of much, not like I'm lookin' for someone protect me or anythin'. Hell no. It's more like Marie makes me feel safe right where I didn't even know I wasn't safe before. She's my earth and ground, 'cept she's warm and she's soft and it feels all over kinda like her sex does when its pulsin' around me. That's the only way I know how to describe it. Then again, sex and Marie are never that far apart in my mind.

So naturally I'm thinkin' 'bout just that—sex and Marie, possibly the two best things in the world, besides the ultimate thing, which is sex *with* Marie—and I ain't thinkin' 'bout this pot she gave me any more, and that really stupid thing 'bout 'Marie-as-a-shape' goes away. I mean, it's a nice pot and everythin', but it ain't her inside. It's cool and rough and empty , and Marie is anythin' but. And then I start thinkin' 'bout how I could smash this vase right now, if I wanted to, and Marie ain't like that either. I usedta think Marie was real fragile, but obviously she ain't. She's my stayin' power, and like I said, it takes a lot to hold the Wolverine. Marie ain't marked fragile anywhere (except her toes. That girl is damned ticklish).

But I think maybe Marie knows how she holds me, and that's why she gave me this, this pot thing that still reminds me of her, except she's so much better. I think that's maybe why she started openin' her eyes, because she can see that in me; she can see what I can't say 'bout just how I want to be inside of her. She can see how I wanna pull her all around me and just take her softness and her warmness and her strength and surround myself with it forever.

So in the end, I don't gotta say much. I just say, "Real nice, kid."

And here's the best part 'bout Marie, the real killer: she understands.


End file.
